Chains Read online

  There were ordinary people, too; maids with baskets over their arms moving into and out of the shops and cart men pushing their barrows over the cobblestones, calling out to each other and yelling at the dogs in their way. The working people were dressed muchly as we did out in the country, but there were a few gentry who stuck out of the crowd like peacocks wandering in the chicken pen. Some of the working folk were black. In truth, I had never seen so many of us in one place, not even at burials.

  A wagon drawn by two thick-necked horses stopped just beyond the end of the dock. Not far behind it came a beautiful carriage drawn by two pale gold stallions and driven by a stout man in livery with a three-cornered hat on his head. He clucked to the horses to walk on until he stopped behind the first wagon.

  The toothless sailor approached us again and pointed down to the dock where the crates and casks stamped LOCKTON & FOOTE were being stacked. “That’s where you belong. Don’t wander off or one of them soldiers will shoot you dead.”

  He laughed as he walked down the swaying plank. We followed with tiny steps, Ruth’s hand in mine. As I stepped onto the solid dock, I stumbled.

  “There you are!” exclaimed Madam Lockton, coming around the stack of crates. “Be careful with that,” she said to two deckhands carrying a fine walnut chest. “That goes on the back of the carriage, not to the warehouse.”

  The men nodded and carried the chest toward the beautiful carriage with the golden horses at the end of the dock.

  “Pretty horses,” Ruth said.

  A soldier at the end of the dock picked up his musket and stopped the two men carrying the walnut chest. There was a brief argument, then the sailors returned, still carrying their burden.

  “What is this?” Madam asked as they set the chest at her feet. “I told you to put that on the carriage.”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” the sailor said, “but them fellas say all cargo has to be inspected at the wharf before it enters the city. Order of some committee what’s in charge here.”

  “Inspected?” She lifted her chin. “Those are my personal belongings. They will not be inspected by anyone. I do not permit it.”

  Master Lockton had been half following the turn of events while supervising the unloading. As his wife’s voice rose, he hurried to join her.

  “Now dear,” he said. “I told you there would be some inconveniences. We must be accommodating. Look, there’s Charles. He’ll straighten this out.”

  A second wagon had pulled up next to the first. A round, short man rolled off it and bustled up to the Locktons.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded the round man. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

  “Lower your voice, Charles,” Lockton said. “Where are the men I instructed you to bring?”

  The round man pulled a handkerchief out of his waistcoat pocket and wiped his face. “Washington’s men took them all to work on the blasted fortifications. Oh, double-blast. Look there: Bellingham.”

  An official-looking man in a somber black coat had stepped out of a building across the street and was striding toward our little group, walking stick in hand. He was followed by a thin fellow carrying a book near as big as Ruth. Behind him walked a slave boy about my height, whose arms were weighted down with a wooden contraption and a small case with a rope handle. The boy wore a floppy red hat, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the blue breeches of a sailor, and a pair of dusty boots.

  “Bellingham is eager to arrest you,” Charles quietly told Master Lockton. “I told you it was still unsafe. You should have waited.”

  “Anne.” Lockton fixed his eyes intently on his wife. “Do not fail me.”

  She gave a little nod.

  “You have a plan?” Charles asked.

  “Everything is in order,” Lockton said.

  “Elihu Lockton!” Bellingham called, waving his walking stick. “Come join us, friend.” Three more soldiers appeared and lined up a few paces behind him.

  “Smile, everyone,” Lockton commanded through clenched teeth. “Pretend to be happy rebels.”

  The Locktons and Charles walked to the land end of the dock. Ruth and me followed a few steps behind, little mice trailing behind dogs that were fixing to fight.

  The boy in the red hat set down the case and fiddled with the strange wooden thing. It was actually two strange wooden things: a folding desk and a small stool. After he set up both of them, the thin fellow laid the book on the desk, opened it to a blank page, and perched on the rickety stool. The boy opened the case and took out a bottle of ink and a quill, which he set next to the book. He closed and latched the case, then stepped back and put his hands behind his back, eyes ahead like he was a soldier too.

  “Good day, Charles.” Bellingham inclined his head toward Madam. “Missus Lockton.”

  Ruth started to raise her hand to wave at the man, but I grabbed it and held it down.

  “Mister Bellingham,” Madam replied. “How fares your good wife?”

  “Happy that summer is nearly here. You know how she hates the cold.”

  “Please tell Lorna I shall call on her as soon as we are settled,” Madam said.

  “Very good,” Bellingham said. “We thought you were in London, Elihu.”

  “London? Never!” exclaimed Lockton. “England offers us nothing but taxes, stamps, and bloodshed.”

  “How odd. Word from Boston is that you still lick the King’s boots.”

  Madam drew in her breath sharply but said nothing.

  “Why do you insult me, sir?” Lockton replied.

  “We are at war, sir,” Bellingham said in a voice that all could hear. Several of the dockworkers put down their burdens and stood up straight. “Insults are the least of my concern. I’m more worried about the British invasion.”

  Lockton shrugged. “I am a merchant with cargo to sell. Search my crates. If you wish, search the entire ship. You won’t find the British fleet, I promise you. Those yellow-bellied cowards have sailed for Canada.”

  Bellingham took two steps and stood a fingertip away from Lockton. He lowered his voice. “I don’t have time for your games. The Committee of Safety suspects you a Tory, in cahoots with Governor Tryon. You’ve come home to fight us who strive for freedom and liberty.”

  All work on the ship stopped. The air had suddenly grown warm. I glanced sideways. The soldiers guarding the crates had picked up their guns. The clerk at the desk was the only one who seemed unrattled. He opened the ink bottle, dipped his pen, and scratched something across a blank page. I caught the boy behind the clerk sparing a quick look at Ruth and me. His eyes were dark gray, the color of the sea during a storm.

  “‘Freedom and liberty’ has many meanings,” Lockton finally said. “Am I free to return to my home? Shall I be at liberty from the improper meddling of your Committee?”

  Bellingham held his position a moment longer, then he took one long step back. “Search the cargo,” he commanded the soldiers, who laid down their weapons and picked up crowbars.

  “Very well,” Lockton said. “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not until I find something,” said Bellingham.

  “Then I’m leaving. My wife is exhausted and needs me to accompany her home. Charles will stay and supervise.”

  The round man sputtered twice but didn’t say a word.

  “Enjoy your homecoming,” Bellingham said. “It may be short.”

  The soldiers had started to go through the crates and call out the contents, the clerk writing down the details in his big book.

  Lockton motioned with his elbow again. “Come, dear,” he said firmly.

  Madam refused to move. “We cannot leave without my chest.”

  “Now, wife,” he said. “It will be sent along.”

  “It travels with me,” Madam said crisply. “Mister Bellingham!”

  Bellingham, bent over the clerk’s inventory book, looked up. “Ma’am?”

  “Does your battle for liberty entitle you to search through the private
linens of a lady?”

  The dock fell silent again. It was one thing for a gentleman to threaten another with arrest. The topic of a lady’s linens was delicate.

  Bellingham cleared his throat and stood up straight. “Well, ah, the rules …”

  “Do I gather, sir, from your hesitation, that you are unsure of the etiquette involved? Perhaps you lack the proper authority.” She carefully set herself on the walnut chest in question.

  “Oh, no, Anne, please,” Lockton groaned. “Do not do this, my dear.”

  Madam ignored him. “I demand that Mr. Bellingham write to his Congress in Philadelphia. If they give permission for common soldiers to rifle through my personal goods, then I will surrender. Until that letter arrives, I shan’t move. I shall guard my dignity day and night.”

  Charles shifted nervously from foot to foot. Lockton pinched the space where his nose met his forehead. The soldiers studied the tips of their boots. Bellingham muttered something impolite, and the boy standing behind the clerk fought hard not to smile.

  My own lips twitched. A woman defending her underclothes from a battalion of soldiers was comical. I didn’t dare laugh, of course.

  But Ruth did. She giggled, a sound like a small silver bell.

  A bell tolling disaster.

  Madam Lockton flew off the chest and pointed her finger at us. “Which one of you made that noise?” Her face flushed with rage, her eyes darting back and forth between us.

  “I did, ma’am,” I quickly lied. The smile on Ruth’s face faded as she figured that something bad was unfolding.

  Craaack! Lightning struck from a blue sky; Madam slapped my face so hard it near threw me to the ground. The sound echoed off the stone-faced buildings. Ruth grabbed at my skirts and helped me stand straight again. She was confused but kept her mouth closed, thank heavens.

  My cheek burned, but I fought back the hot tears and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. No one had ever slapped my face like that, not once in my whole life. Better me than Ruth, better me than Ruth.

  Madam sat back on the wooden chest and looked calmly at her husband, as if nothing had happened. The soldiers all went about their business, one of them whistling. The only person who looked my way was the boy in the red hat. He kept his features froze in a mask, but he swallowed hard.

  Lockton shrugged. “You see, Bellingham? I don’t have time for your war. I have enough battles in my own household.”

  Bellingham sighed and waved at the soldier closest to where Madam sat. “You there. Carry the lady’s belongings to her carriage.”

  He did not mention me. I was already forgotten, dismissed, though the outline of her palm and fingers still burned on my skin. For an instant, I saw myself pushing her off the dock into the water below, but I blinked twice and the vision vanished. I took Ruth by the hand.

  Madam rose gracefully. “Thank you, Mr. Bellingham.”

  Lockton offered his arm again to his wife, and this time, she took it. Bellingham lifted his hat as they passed. Ruth and me trailed close behind.

  As we approached the carriage, the driver jumped down and opened the door. Lockton helped his wife as she stepped up and settled on the padded seat. “Well done, my dear,” he murmured. “Well done, indeed.”

  Madam blushed. “’Twas all your doing.” She smoothed her skirts. “Put the little girl up with the driver.”

  “What about the older one?”

  She leaned forward to stare at me, standing just behind the master. “Send that one to fetch us some clean water. I doubt Becky has had word of our arrival yet.”

  Lockton looked puzzled. “How will she know where to find the pump? Or how to get home, for that matter?”

  “Charles will find someone to assist her.”

  “I’ll take her, sir.”

  Lockton turned around. The boy had removed his red hat and bowed politely. “I’m Curzon, sir. Mister Bellingham’s boy. My master needs me to fetch new quills up Vandewater Street. I could show your girl the way.”

  The driver and the soldier had finished strapping the walnut chest to the back of the carriage. The driver spoke gently to Ruth and took her by the hand to meet the horses. She giggled and went eagerly.

  Lockton studied the boy, then looked over to Bellingham, who was inspecting one of the opened crates with a nervous Charles by his side.

  “Excellent idea,” said Madam.

  “You know where our house is?” Lockton asked Curzon.

  “One of the proudest in our city, sir,” the boy answered as he put his hat back on his head. With him standing this close, I could see the gold ring in his right ear, like a pirate’s, and a long, thin scar that ran along the left side of his chin. “South side of Wall Street, just past Smith.”

  Lockton grunted and glared at me. “Be quick about your business, no dawdling, understand?”

  I curtsied, bewildered at the speed of it all. Yesterday I had been aboard a ship. The day before that, sold in a tavern. The day before that, I woke up in my own bed and watched an old woman die. My belly ached again, as if I were still at sea and the waves were throwing me off balance.

  “Well?” Lockton demanded.

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

  He looked at his wife. “This one might be simple too.” He climbed into the carriage, closed the door, and rapped at the ceiling with his knuckles. “Go, driver.”

  The carriage rolled away, Ruth sitting up straight, with a big grin, the golden horses tossing their manes, hooves flashing in the sunshine. She waved to me as they drove away.

  I bent down, dipped my fingers in a puddle, and scrubbed the spot where that woman hit me.

  Chapter VI

  Wednesday, May 29, 1776

  WE ARE TOLD, THAT THE SUBJECTION OF AMERICANS MAY TEND TO THE DIMINUTION OF OUR OWN LIBERTIES; … HOW IS IT THAT WE HEAR THE LOUDEST YELPS FOR LIBERTY AMONG THE DRIVERS OF NEGROES? –ENGLISH AUTHOR SAMUEL JOHNSON IN HIS POLITICAL PAMPHLET, TAXATION NO TYRANNY

  This way,” the boy said as the carriage turned the corner. He headed away from the waterfront quick, without looking back. I picked up my skirts and ran after him.

  “Please, slow down,” I called.

  He pushed ahead. I tried to follow. We hurried past the biggest houses I had ever seen, past shops and taverns and manufactories, past city folk walking like their shoes were on fire. But I could not move fast enough, and I was losing sight of him in the crowd.

  “You best slow down!” I called. Folks about me muttered and frowned. The boy stopped in front of a tavern and waited, his mouth twisted in irritation.

  I trotted up to him so angry that steam came off the top of my head. “You offer to help, then you abandon me.” The words spilled out of my mouth. “Where are we going? And why did she send me to buy water? Don’t people here know about digging wells?”

  He waited for a moment, then said, “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “You give dull-witted answers,” I shot back.

  “Country girls are slow-moving, vexing creatures,” he said.

  “You’re the vexatious one,” I said. “Running off and leaving me like that.”

  We stood glaring at each other, him with his arms crossed over his chest, me trying to catch my breath. Inside the tavern, a woman argued with a man about a leaking cask of beer. On the street corner, an army officer yelled orders at four soldiers building a barricade out of logs, large stones, and barrows full of dirt.

  My heart finally slowed, my brow cooled off, and I wanted to give myself a nasty pinch. Fool. I should have kept my temper. Now he would truly leave and I would be lost in this horrible place, and there was no telling what Madam Lockton might do to Ruth in my absence.

  Apologies did not come natural to me, but I had no choice. “I am sorry I spoke so rudely.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “I am sorry I caused you a fright, Country.”

  “Thank you. And my name is Isabel, not Country.”

  “Apologies again, Miss Country Isabel,” he said with a smile
. “I should have explained before. We’re headed up to what folks call the Tea Water Pump. Rich people get their water from there ’cause it tastes the best. But first I must deliver a message for my master. Stay here.”

  He ducked inside a stationer’s shop briefly and came out carrying a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and two fresh rolls, steaming hot, with butter oozing from their middles.

  “Follow this a’ way.”

  We walked the length of an alley to a small courtyard. Someone had planted a garden there, and the first plants had come up: peas, cabbage, and pennyroyal. Curzon handed me a roll and pointed to a tree stump. “Figured you’d want to set and eat a bite.”

  “I have no money,” I said. “I can’t take this.”

  “It cost me nothing,” he said. “The baker’s daughter likes the lad who works the press. She brings him extra breads and pies. Go ahead, eat.”

  Half of my roll disappeared in one bite. It was the first decent food I’d had since Jenny’s kitchen. Curzon watched me without saying a word. When I licked the butter off my fingers, he gave me his roll.

  “I et a large breakfast,” he said.

  My pride wanted to turn it down, but my belly was stronger. The second roll vanished as quick as the first.

  “Thank you,” I said when I finished. “I’m beholden to you for that. Can we go now? I need to get back to my sister.”

  He set his package on the tree stump. “The littler one is your sister? That’s why you took the blow meant for her, isn’t it?”

  A breeze ran through the courtyard, fluttering the leaves of the young pea plants and blowing cool across my cheek where Madam struck me. “She needs watching over.”

  He nodded. “How long have you been with the Locktons?”

  “Three days.”

  Curzon listened carefully as I told how Madam and her husband bought us. “Lockton is a dirty Loyalist,” he said when I finished.

  “Loyalist or rebel, I don’t care.” I stood up from the stump and brushed the back of my skirt clean. “Can we go?”